Cities Are Where It’s At When It Comes to Fighting Climate Change

The title of this article should evince a response from readers with this question “why cities over states and nations?”

In 2020, 56.5% of humanity lived in cities. And by 2050 that number will grow to 68%. Where most of us live is then a strong determining factor in how climate change will progress throughout this century and beyond. Addressing it through cities, therefore, makes sense.

A global organization of cities known as C40 is leading the way. C40’s aim is to meet the objectives of the Paris Climate Agreement and pursue limiting atmospheric temperature rise to 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit). It commits members to implement climate action plans to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, including adaptation to climate change in every city decision, and ensuring urban populations can ride out the century and beyond without too much disruption.

At a Copenhagen, Denmark, climate summit in 2019, the C40 group, currently representing 97 cities, and more than 700 million people and 25% of the global economy committed to cutting GHG emissions by 50% as of 2030. At the conference, one city mayor noted that world leaders continue to fail to agree to actions necessary to stop rising atmospheric temperatures, and called them out noting their ineptitude as a direct threat to all citizens of the planet including those living in urban spaces.

Of the 18 C40 city members in North America, Denver is not listed. Yet the city has a  climate office and plan that includes hiring a Decarbonization Incentives Manager (DIM). This is an interesting new position, one with no similar title currently appears among C40 urban governments.

So what is the DIM’s responsibility?

1. Help the city dramatically lower GHG contributions from homes and buildings.
2. Use funding raised specifically for decarbonizations to help existing and new buildings adopt 100% electric energy systems.
3. Offer incentives to the building sector to implement electric energy for heating and cooling.
4. Achieve zero emissions for Denver’s inventory of buildings by 2040.

In Denver, almost 66% of the city’s GHGs come from buildings and homes. The city’s Office of Climate Action, Sustainability and Resiliency (CASR) kept updating building codes for new construction but didn’t have much of an answer for existing built inventory.

The DIM will report to CASR. The funding expected to generate $40 million annually from a 0.25% sales and use tax, will help buildings and homeowners to move to electric heat pumps and away from natural gas. In addition, the money will allow homes and buildings to increase the energy efficiency of structures and improve indoor air quality while investing in green jobs workforce training. It is expected that the DIM will develop demonstration and pilot projects within commercial and multi-residential buildings. Based on their success, the city will then be able to expand these programs to cover existing built inventory prioritizing lower-income and under-resourced areas to begin.

I would think one of the first acts of the new DIM would be to have the city of Denver join C40 where a repository of knowledge on climate change adaptation and action strategies is already being implemented by urban centres around the planet. And C40 wouldn’t mind learning from the Denver experience and spreading the knowledge from its successes to other cities around the world.

After all, as I stated in the title and at the beginning of this article, it’s cities where it’s at when it comes to combatting global warming and reducing GHGs. And as cities succeed in solving this existential challenge, it is to them that citizens of the world will look to address other challenges. The future of humanity lies in our cities.

Many futurists I talk with have been arguing that it will be cities that survive the disruption of climate change and cause all of humanity to reorganize itself into smaller, more-citizen-centric political entities. From the trends I’m tracking, this would be no surprise to me.